


Return the Favor

by tuesday



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Consent Issues, Cunnilingus, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, F/F, Necrophilia, Post-Canon, Resurrection, Resurrection Sex to Fix Canon Character Death, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:27:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23698474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesday/pseuds/tuesday
Summary: Gideon looked terrible.
Relationships: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Comments: 4
Kudos: 65
Collections: What Fen Do (Instead of Going Outside)





	Return the Favor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [adspexi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/adspexi/gifts).



> Consent issues tagged for are those baked into the premise. I promise Gideon's having a great time once she's capable of it.
> 
> Recip, I hope you enjoy!

"Her body is in the morgue," the emperor told Harrowhark and in so doing won her undying loyalty, "if you're willing to take the necessary measures." His smile was gentle, understanding. "No one would blame you if you are not."

—

Gideon looked terrible. Someone had cleaned her up somewhat, and the body had been kept cold enough that rot hadn't set in, but it was very obviously a dead body. There was a gaping hole in Gideon's abdomen, partly hidden by a thin blue hospital gown someone had dressed her in, but obvious in the way the fabric dipped. Traces of blood had dried in her hair. Her lips were cracked and dried out, and for once, it wasn't because she hadn't bothered to moisturize. A pall of energy hung over her, ready and waiting for Harrowhark to use it.

Gideon's bones called out to Harrowhark, ready to be separated from the weak, unnecessary flesh and set to serve her. Harrowhark felt her own energy itch to be used, to follow that path she'd threatened Gideon with so long ago. A few gestures and a little bit of effort, and Gideon's bones would serve Harrowhark for the rest of Harrowhark's long, long life—a life which looked likely to stretch to infinity now. What was left of Gideon would never talk back. It wouldn't argue, would follow every command as soon as Harrowhark thought it. It could be told to take up Gideon's sword and fight at Harrowhark's side for the rest of eternity. They would never be parted.

Harrowhark had always been greedy, had always reached too far too fast and couldn't rest until she'd grasped the stars. She wanted more.

There was an attendant in the morgue, a huge, hulking man who was ready and willing to move bodies around at the emperor's every whim. The emperor had directed him to help Harrowhark with whatever she asked. Harrowhark didn't want this stranger to put his hands on Gideon's body. Harrowhark was no Gideon, with her ridiculous muscles from even more ridiculous training regimens, but she was strong enough for this, surely.

… Dead bodies were heavy, heavier than Harrowhark had anticipated, especially with the flesh attached. Harrowhark could command it to get up and walk and spare them both the humiliation of Gideon's legs dragging the floor, but she would need every last iota of thaumaturgic energy for what lay ahead. Harrowhark sighed. She compromised.

"If you could get the feet," Harrowhark said.

"Of course, my lady," the morgue attendant said.

—

Harrowhark's rooms on the ship were cramped, but well appointed. There was a small sitting room with a table and two chairs and a soft couch and a smaller bedroom which was mostly taken up by a queen-sized bed. Most of the storage was set into the wall, but there was also an armoire bolted down into the floor. The bed had clean sheets that smelled of some sort of flowery scent, which were immediately ruined by the dead body Harrowhark and the attendant laid down upon it.

Harrowhark would like to say that she laid the body down gently, respectfully, with all the love and devotion she had reluctantly grown to feel for Gideon—or at least that any disregard for the body was drawn solely from her own disregard for the irritating person who used to be attached to it. Sweat beaded her brow and dripped down the small of her back. Gideon was dropped on the bed without ceremony and with a great deal of relief. Her head bounced gracelessly off the pillow. Close enough. Harrowhark was going to call it a win.

The attendant was waiting for further instructions. Tenderly stroking Gideon's cheekbone and the lax flesh attached, Harrowhark gave them: "Get out."

The attendant went. Harrowhark and Gideon were alone. (Harrowhark was alone—but not for long.)

Gideon's body was still clothed in the cotton hospital gown. It wasn't a good look on her. She should always be either in traditional Ninth robes or, and Harrowhark smiled to contemplate the impossibility, silk gowns she would immediately ruin and Harrowhark could make fun of her for. Maybe when she was alive, Harrowhark could suggest it just to see the look on her face.

"Nav, you utter pain," Harrowhark said, "you had better appreciate this."

Wrestling Gideon out of the gown was easier than lugging her down the hallway. One sleeve caught on her elbow, and Harrowhark straightened the arm and pulled it through. Whoever had dressed her in the gown hadn't included underwear. Those were—those were Gideon's surprisingly muscular tits. Seriously, what kind of routine had Gideon followed to get those abs and thick biceps? It was almost enough to distract from that gaping hole, now revealed.

"You idiot," Harrowhark said softly, trailing her fingers along the ragged edges of the hole. "Who gave you the right to die for me?"

 _You did,_ was the faintest echo of Gideon's voice. It wasn't Gideon, but Harrowhark could picture her crooked smile, the determination and the defiance in her eyes, the way she'd hold her shoulders back like she was eager for a fight.

Gideon's mouth was cold from the morgue, would be cold even without it. She tasted like iron. There was a smear of blood at the corner of her lips, and Harrowhark awkwardly licked it, gulping down the wisps of thaumaturgic energy accompanying it. It wasn't how Harrowhark imagined kissing a living person would feel. The lips were neither stiffly held together nor sweetly opening up in welcome. They only moved when Harrowhark's lips and tongue moved them. It wasn't how Harrowhark had imagined kissing _Gideon_ would be, passive and terrible.

Harrowhark gripped Gideon's jaw with trembling fingers and kissed and kissed and kissed, sliding her tongue against the lax, dead tongue in Gideon's lax, dead mouth. Gideon didn't so much grow warm as Harrowhark grew cold to match her. Harrowhark was of the Ninth. The cold didn't bother her. The energy in the body and the energy in Harrowhark grew closer, sympathetic, but not the same. It wasn't enough.

After perhaps ten minutes of trying, Harrowhark drew back. This wasn't working, and they were on a deadline. The more time that passed, the more difficult it was to draw someone back. If Harrowhark were someone else, someone with less ambition, less resolve—less greed—she might think that too much time had passed already.

Harrowhark smiled coldly and said, "You couldn't make this easy on me, could you?"

She took off her shoes and socks first and left them at the foot of the bed, then shucked the robes she was dressed in with efficient, mechanical motions. She folded them and put them in the bottom of the armoire, below the extra robes provided which were hanging and clean. She removed her underwear calmly and folded it, too, and put it on top of the folded robes. She closed the armoire and stared at the false wood of the door for several minutes like an utter coward as she made herself take deep, even breaths. When she had collected herself, she turned back to the body.

"You had better appreciate this."

 _I'd appreciate it more if I were alive to enjoy it._ It still wasn't Gideon. It wasn't even the last echoes from when Harrowhark had eaten her death and absorbed her soul. But it was what Harrowhark had.

"I don't want to do this," Harrowhark said, but the problem was that she did. She wanted to do it with the empty shell that had housed Gideon and she had wanted to do it with the warm, living, lively person Gideon had been and she wanted to do it with the abomination she was going to bring back, because she refused to let this fail. Harrowhark had opened the closed tomb as a child. How difficult could this be?

(Very difficult.)

Harrowhark started with another kiss, pressed to the muscled curve of Gideon's shoulder this time. She dragged her lips along Gideon's collarbone, dipped her tongue in the shallow hollow where it met its mate. She mouthed at the swell of Gideon's breast and licked at the nipple, then gently bit. It didn't pebble under her ministrations. Gideon was dead. It was obvious in every action without any sort of reaction. This was a dead body. No soul was housed here anymore.

"Come back," Harrowhark called, twisting the abused nipple between forefinger and thumb. She was sure Gideon was going to try to kill her when she got back or, worse (better), repay the favor.

 _I'm trying,_ Gideon didn't say.

"Come back," Harrowhark said again, pressing her wet face to Gideon's infuriatingly perfect chest.

Nothing answered her yet.

It was fine.

Harrowhark had only gotten started.

Harrowhark kissed her way down Gideon's body, not avoiding the hole. Gently, reverently, she pressed her mouth against the jagged edges of it and drank up the energy clinging to it.

 _Gross,_ she could almost hear Gideon say admiringly.

Harrowhark had already gotten so much of Gideon. She had gotten her loyalty, undeserved as it was. She had gotten Gideon's skills, as ill-suited as she was to wield them. She had gotten Gideon's death, gifted just for her survival. She had gotten _so much_ , but always, always, she wanted more.

Someone had cleaned up as best they could her Gideon's body; Harrowhark was simultaneously grateful and hated them for touching something that was not theirs. The short curls of Gideon's pubic hair smelled like soap. Trying not to think too hard, Harrowhark carded her finger through the wiry curls. She dropped a kiss against Gideon's thickly muscled thigh.

"You should be awake for this part," Harrowhark said, as though the promise of what was to come would be enough to bring Gideon back. "Wake up. Come back to me."

Nothing. There was nothing. Harrowhark hadn't expected any differently.

Swallowing hard, Harrowhark pushed Gideon's legs apart. She had never done this before, but she had thought about it. There were so few people in the Ninth, and only three in her age group (or who at least looked that way). Her original cavalier had been out of the question. The girl in the tomb wasn't in a state to be brought back by this method, but Harrowhark couldn't say she hadn't considered the possibility.

And Gideon? Infuriating, maddening Gideon? Of course Harrowhark had thought about it. Harrowhark had thought about it an embarrassing amount from the moment they reached puberty and Gideon filled out from the gawky, weird sacrifice who refused to die into a somewhat attractive, weird teenager who refused to submit right up until her last moments as an extremely attractive, still weird young woman who finally decided this was the moment to go out in a blaze of glory the one time Harrowhark desperately wanted her to live.

Harrowhark delivered another kiss to Gideon's most private of places, and there was magic in it. There was the magic of death that lingered, but there was also the magic of Harrowhark's life, pulsing through her strongly enough to warm them both. Gideon's skin was soft and delicate down here, almost velvety. Harrowhark wanted to lick it, so she did. She dragged her tongue along the folds and flicked her tongue over the clit.

"Come back." Harrowhark's voice broke halfway through. Gideon was getting wet, but only with Harrowhark's spit and tears. "Come back, _come back_."

Harrowhark herself was wet, not just her eyes and mouth, but below. When she accepted that what she had done thus far was not enough, she slid her fingers through the slick evidence of how much she wanted Gideon. She circled the hood of her clit with the pads of her first two fingers as she circled Gideon's with the tip of her tongue.

When she pulled back this time, it was because there was _a hand in her hair_. It was gentle, weak. There was no force to it.

In a hoarse voice, Gideon said, "Hey, come back." Harrowhark looked up to see Gideon's crooked smile and eyes that were unfocused, but open, half-lidded and pleased. "We're not done."

"We're not," Harrowhark vowed. Harrowhark was never going to be done with this person. One flesh, one end, for the rest of Harrowhark's immortal life. Bending her head, Harrowhark got back to it.

The hand on her hair fell away. Gideon must have been too weak to hold it up. She wasn't fully here yet. Harrowhark got back to fixing that.

Now that she knew to look for it, Harrowhark noticed that Gideon was getting warmer. Part of it was that the room was warmer than the morgue, but when Harrowhark felt at the pulsepoint of Gideon's inner thigh, she felt a beat, sluggish and unsteady, but more than her own pulse beating back at her. Harrowhark turned her head and pressed a kiss there, too, and was rewarded with a soft sigh. Gideon's lips were dark and flushed with blood, parted slightly. Her clit had filled out a little, the hood pulled slightly back. Under the soap, there was a faintly musky scent.

"I know dead bodies are what do it for you," Gideon said, "but if you keep going, I can return the favor."

Harrowhark repressed the urge to bite Gideon's thigh. This was about more than returning a favor. "I haven't come this far to let you slip away again." She glared up at Gideon and said, "Tell me if there's something you like."

When Harrowhark returned to licking at Gideon, focused on her clit, Gideon said, "That. I like that." When Harrowhark slid her fingers from Gideon's thigh to her entrance, circling it curiously, Gideon said, "Nope, not today. Clip your fingernails first, Nonagesimus."

Harrowhark kept her nails short, but she did have a ragged edge from the knockdown, dragout fight that simultaneously seemed like an age ago and like she'd emerged victorious from only minutes before. Harrowhark moved that hand back to Gideon's thigh, rubbing the crease of it gently with her thumb. Gideon's breath hitched audibly when Harrowhark tried sucking gently, but begged off when she sucked harder.

"At least, not yet," Gideon amended. "Let me warm up a bit."

For her part, Harrowhark kept the fingers of her right hand moving in gentle circles, building herself up slowly. She already ached with it, heat pooling in her belly, clit practically standing at attention. She flicked her finger over the glans as she flicked her tongue over Gideon's, and this time she was rewarded with a moan.

Harrowhark had always thought Gideon would be mouthy like this, that the air would be filled with boasts and unrelenting chatter if she ever got Gideon on her back, but other than the occasional gasp or moan and the minimal feedback if something was too much, Gideon was quiet. If Harrowhark had known this was what it took to shut her up, she would have—well, she would have nothing, because Gideon hated her back when they were at the Ninth. If Harrowhark had suggested this, Gideon would have laughed and then she would have spat in her face. Even if Gideon had decided she was desperate or lonely enough to go for it at that point, _Harrowhark_ had too much pride to ask.

Harrowhark didn't need to ask now. Gideon shifted, but it was to get closer. She threw a leg over Harrowhark's shoulder and tilted her hips up, practically shoving herself into Harrowhark's face. The musk overpowered the soap, and Harrowhark was dizzy with it. Her jaw was beginning to ache, but she kept telling herself, _Not yet, not yet_. She wanted to come, but not before she'd brought Gideon off at least once.

"Have you considered," and at least Gideon's voice was gratifying unsteady to make up for the rest of her quiet, "that I might not be able to until you do?"

When Harrowhark looked up this time, the ragged hole in Gideon's abdomen was smaller, but remained. It was slow to close, but it was closing.

"You always did like to drag your feet to muster," Harrowhark said. She sucked at Gideon's clit as she finally let herself fall into it, fingers speeding up and pushing her right over the edge. As she shivered her way through orgasm, she felt Gideon shudder, too, magic finally in sync.

"Off, off, off," Gideon said urgently a few seconds later, putting a callused hand to Harrowhark's forehead and pushing. Gideon hadn't gotten her full strength back yet, but Harrowhark let herself be moved. "Do you not get sensitive after or do you like the pain?" Despite the palm resting against Harrowhark's forehead, her tone was curious, not complaining.

The hole in Gideon's abdomen had shrunk to a scabbed line. Harrowhark frowned to see it. "Would you like to find out?"

"I did promise to return the favor," Gideon said. She flashed a cocky grin, but when she went to sit up, she collapsed back onto the bed again. "Just give me a minute."

"You can have several," Harrowhark said. She crawled up beside Gideon and, uncaring of whether or not this was thing they did, buried her face in Gideon's shoulder threw her arms around her. Gideon's hand crept into her hair again, but she didn't push her off.

"So," Gideon said before Harrowhark could catch her breath. _What's up with the freaky mind meld?_

"You know how I brought you back," Harrowhark said. Aloud. Because she observed proper decorum.

 _Nothing decorous about what we just did._ But despite the minor sassing, Gideon continued, "And _you_ know I haven't read half the dusty old tomes you have. I don't know the fine print that was attached to this particular working."

"It means you're stuck with me," Harrowhark said. She swallowed back her trepidation and nerves and just barely managed to keep her voice flat. "Forever."

"Forever, huh?" Gideon's hand carded softly through Harrowhark's hair, then rested gently at the base of her skull. "I think I can live with that."

Harrowhark closed her eyes and told herself what she felt wasn't relief.

"You're an awful liar," Gideon said.

Eventually, they would sit up. Eventually, Gideon would return the favor. Eventually, they would sync to the point that Gideon's torso would heal without a scar. For now, Harrowhark lay in Gideon's arms and, just this once, let herself project a shallow displeasure and deep gratitude and love as unending as the universe unfolding before them.


End file.
